


fraterfamilias

by kamisado



Category: Casualty (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, spoilers up to s29e05 Born Lucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5104784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamisado/pseuds/kamisado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But when Ethan looks up again, his eyes are cold. Not for the first time, he looks much older than his barely eighteen years, crumpled and exhausted, and Cal wishes he was anywhere but here. This was always going to be difficult, but he just wants to make this work out, help them be a family again. They’re both adults now, right? It shouldn’t feel like this, like he’s picking sides, and he’s picked the wrong one and lost a brother.</p><p>It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to help, and broke something in the process.</p><p>[a history of cal and ethan, from childhood on]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Caleb is six years old, boisterous and strong, with sun-bleached freckles smattered across both cheeks and scabs just _itching_ to be picked on his elbows and his knees. When he smiles, it's easy to see the big gaps where his front two teeth should be, and he lisps his way through every sentence, proud as anything.

Ethan is four, with floppy blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched askew on his nose. There's a thick smudge of suncream under his eyes and over the bridge of his nose, and it's kind of unnecessary in the balmy late afternoon, but Mother said he needed it, and he'll always listen to her.

They're playing outside like they have been all day, and Cal reckons they've got at least another few games worth before they're called back inside for bedtime, or worse, _bathtime._ They spend their days playing in the grounds of the house, the big white house with the fancy lattice windows that they call home. There’s acres and acres to play in, but that means that any neighbours they have are far, far away, so all they really have is eachother for company.

At the foot of the garden, Ethan's found himself a big stick and is crouched drawing patterns in the dry earth where the grass is balding.

"Wotcha doin'?" Cal asks, peering over his little brother's shoulder. Ethan's brow is furrowed, like he's thinking really hard.

"'M writing," he mumbles, and Cal squints at the lines in the dust. He's proud to say that he can read, and his writing gets a gold star when he tries really hard, so he feels quite smug when he realises that Ethan isn't quite so good at either. There's a big wobbly E on the ground, followed by what could be a 't' but looks suspiciously like an 'f'.

"That's not right!" Cal cries, brow furrowed, pointing at the misshapen letter, and lunges for the stick that Ethan's drawing with. Ethan snatches it away with a yelp and a hasty "Lem _me_ do it!" Cal watches confusedly as the 'h' becomes a 'H' and the 'a' looks a lot more like an 'o', before he decides enough is enough, and he's got to help out here.

He lunges for the stick again, and this time Ethan's not quite fast enough. "No!" Ethan yelps, trying to snatch it away, but Cal's got hold of the other end and is pulling hard. Cal always wins these fights, Ethan ought to really know that already, but there's a sense of pride in this. Cal is picturing how the letters should be, tugging on the stick, hoping he's not going to get another stupid splinter again.

And Cal's been a fair few scraps in his life, both with Ethan and half the kids in his primary school, so he's got a few dirty tricks up his sleeve. He wiggles the stick and throws Ethan off balance, before tugging it sharply towards him. It works perfectly, and Ethan is forced to let go, in order to use his hands to break his fall. Cal holds the stick triumphantly in the air, smiling widely, before he realises that Ethan is on his hands and knees in the dirt and starting to cry.

Cal kneels down next to him, keeping tight hold of the stick just in case this is a mean ploy (not that Ethan would ever stoop to such Cal-like levels), and tries to assess the damage. Ethan begins to wail louder.

"Shhh," Cal tries to comfort his younger brother, casting a nervous glance towards the house. "Shhh, it's only a scratch." He tries to placate his brothers with the same words the teachers use in the playground when he goes skittering across the tarmac head-first at full speed, but as Ethan sits back, Cal can tell that's not going to work.

Blood is trickling from the grazes that are fairly deep in Ethan's knees, and the palms of his hands are scraped and muddy too. At the sight of blood, Ethan begins to full on howl, and Cal decides it's time to do some damage control.

"'M going to get Mother," Cal mumbles, barely audible over the crying, dropping the stupid stick to the ground and running towards the house.

"Ethan's fallen over," he calls into the house as Mother stumbles down the stairs in a flurry. He deliberately leaves out the details as to exactly _how_ and _why_ he fell, and as soon as she hears the crying outside, Mother runs outside and scoops Ethan up in her arms. She doesn’t even look at Cal.

-

Cal watches from the doorway of the living room as Ethan perches on the edge of the faded velvet sofa and Mother dabs antiseptic cream on the cuts. Ethan's still crying, but he seems much happier sucking his thumb and clutching onto his slightly-balding teddy. Cal half-wonders if this is something he could do when he grows up, help people feel better. It would much better than hurting them in the first place, after all.

Ethan looks at him balefully from the sofa, but says nothing. Cal knows he’s got to do something right. With a crayon in one hand, and a slightly rumpled sheet of paper in the other, Cal gets to work, making an ‘E’ in his neatest writing. He thinks this is probably the hardest he’s ever tried to do something to do with school, and he unconsciously pokes his tongue out in concentration as he goes over the five letters harder.

“Here,” is all he says as he thrusts the sheet of paper, folded carefully in half, towards his little brother. Ethan is perched on Mother’s knee now, and she looks on confusedly.

“What did you make, honey?” she asks, taking the paper and unfolding it. Etched in bold red crayon is Ethan’s name in big block letters. She smiles and hands it to her younger son, who takes it with sticky hands. He stares at it for a minute, before smiling wide.

“Fank you,” he says, round the thumb that’s found its way back into his mouth, still smiling, still staring at his name on the page. In that moment, Cal vows to never make his brother cry again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jsyk this entire fic is probably not going to be anything close to canon after next week's episode cause we're finally getting some cal+ethan backstory, but here you go anyway!

Caleb is thirteen years old when he decides he wants to be a doctor. At first, his teachers think this is some kind of joke. Most of them quirk an eyebrow, remind him how difficult it is, how much work he’s got to put in. Some of them can’t even suppress their mirth. Cal can see it in their eyes as they try to puzzle out how could a scrappy kid who turns up to the absolute _bare minimum_ of classes with the wrong books and his uniform in disarray suddenly wants to do medicine?

To be fair, he’d expected this sort of a reaction from them. Cal knows there’s no shortage of wannabe-doctors around this stuffy old place, with far better grades and a brown-nosing attitude to boot. Medicine or not, he reckons they’ll just be glad to see the back of him. And he figures if his parents are willing to pay such a ridiculous amount of money to keep him there, he might as well make the most of it.

Mother is proud when he tells her, rumpling his hair and smiling wide, but there’s an air about her that suggests she thinks Cal is merely being precocious, that he might as well have said ‘astronaut’ or ‘prime minister’ and her reaction would have been the same.

Father is about as suspicious as his teachers, with an extra side of condescension and verbal abuse.

“It’s good to know you _finally_ have some ambition, son,” he slurs that evening, not even looking at his eldest son. He’s the ultimate cliché, the stereotypical patriarch, all fur and wealth and liquor, but that doesn’t mean that Cal fears him any less. His words are snide, the sentiment insincere. Mother looks as if she’s going to say something, but the moment is fleeting, passing as quickly as it arrived. Cal’s learned to ignore these jibes by now, taking them all on the chin, but they still sting.

Everything that’s thrown his way is one less thing that’s thrown at Ethan, and Cal knows it’s his responsibility to look after his little brother, no matter what.

“I’m gonna be a doctor, Ethan,” he whispers in the dim light of Ethan’s bedroom that night. Of course, the house is more than big enough for them to have a room each, but Cal keeps finding himself sneaking into his brother’s room to talk about his day, just before bedtime. Ethan nods gravely in the moonlight. “I wanna help people, and I wanna prove to Father that I’m not just a massive screw-up.”

“You’re not a screw-up,” Ethan says reflexively, the solemn look on his face making him seem much wiser than his eleven years. The moonlight catches on the big round lenses of his glasses, rendering them owl-like in darkness. “I don’t think you’re a screw-up.” Cal just smirks unconvincingly, staring blankly at the ugly paisley-patterned wallpaper.

“I don’t think you’ve been paying enough attention in school, little bro,” he says, drumming his fingers on his knees, a nervous tic. He reminisces half-fondly about the stupid stuff he’d done that week alone. Tacks on chairs and the odd trip-up in the hall; generic but effective. Everyone knew that Caleb Knight was a little shit, but he was nothing if not consistent. Might as well make the most of it while he can.

“Is that why all the teachers keep expecting me to be a… hellraiser?” Ethan asks, unimpressed, one eyebrow raised. Cal can almost picture it now, the form teacher running their finger down the column, seeing ‘Knight, Ethan’ and thinking _Oh God, no_ to themselves. He turns to his brother and grins widely. Ethan rolls his eyes, but there’s no ill-feeling in it. Cal’s glad of it; he could do worse.

The amicable silence stretches out between them, as Cal lazily stumbles to his feet. It’s getting late.

“Hey Cal,” Ethan half-whispers, just as Cal pulls the door open, light spilling into the darkened room. “Maybe I could be a doctor too. The school’ll never know what hit them.” Cal smiles. Finally, someone believes in him enough to think he’d actually do this.

“Goodnight, Dr Knight,” Cal says, as he closes the door softly with a click.

“Goodnight, Dr Knight.”


End file.
